Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS Software Release 5.2(6) Data Sheet

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Cisco
® MDS 9000 NX-OS Software is the underlying system software that powers the award-winning Cisco MDS 9000 Family multilayer switches. Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS is designed for data center switches to create a strategic platform with superior reliability, performance, and scalability. Cisco expands its unified fabric storage portfolio with enhanced Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and Fibre Channel options, unified management, and new fabric services for Cisco MDS 9000 Family products and Cisco Nexus
® 7000 Series Switches to enable convergence, scalability, and intelligence across LAN and SAN environments in large, virtualized data centers.

In addition to providing all the essential features that the market expects of a SAN switch, Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS provides many unique features that help the Cisco MDS 9000 Family deliver low total cost of ownership (TCO) and a quick return on investment (ROI).

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS runs on all Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches, from multilayer fabric switches to multilayer directors. Using the same base system software across the entire product line helps Cisco provide an extensive, consistent, and compatible feature set across the Cisco MDS 9000 Family. In addition, Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS runs on the Cisco Nexus Family of data center Ethernet switches, providing a common software infrastructure for the evolution of unified fabrics.

Multiprotocol Support

In addition to supporting Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP), Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS supports IBM Fibre Connection (FICON), Small Computer System Interface over IP (iSCSI), FCoE, and Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) in a single platform. Native iSCSI support in the Cisco MDS 9000 Family helps customers consolidate storage for a wide range of servers into a common pool on the SAN. FCoE allows an evolutionary approach to I/O consolidation by preserving all Fibre Channel constructs, maintaining the latency, security, and traffic management attributes of Fibre Channel while preserving investments in Fibre Channel tools, training, and SANs.

FCoE recognizes Fibre Channel as the dominant storage protocol in the data center while giving customers a viable I/O consolidation solution. FCoE simplifies customer environments by using Ethernet and allowing the industry to avoid creation of another, separate protocol for I/O consolidation. Native FCIP support allows customers to take advantage of their existing investment in IP networks for cost-effective business continuity solutions for both Fibre Channel and FICON environments. With Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS multiprotocol support, customers can better use their enterprise resources, thereby lowering costs and reducing business risk.

Virtual SANs

Virtual SAN (VSAN) technology partitions a single physical SAN into multiple VSANs. The Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches led the market with VSAN support built into the switch hardware, and have the most mature and comprehensive support for this implementation of the industry's virtual fabric standard. VSAN capabilities allow Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS to logically divide a large physical fabric into separate, isolated environments to improve Fibre Channel SAN scalability, availability, manageability, and security. For mainframe environments, VSANs facilitate true hardware-based separation of FICON and open systems.

Each VSAN is a logically and functionally separate SAN with its own set of Fibre Channel fabric services. This partitioning of fabric services greatly reduces network instability by containing fabric reconfigurations and error conditions within an individual VSAN. The strict traffic segregation provided by VSANs helps ensure that the control and data traffic of a given VSAN are confined within the VSAN's own domain, increasing SAN security, scalability, and resilience. VSANs help reduce costs by facilitating the consolidation of isolated SAN islands into a common infrastructure without compromising availability, security, or scalability. Users can create SAN administrator roles that are limited in scope to certain VSANs. For example, a SAN administrator role can be set up to allow configuration of all platform-specific capabilities, and other roles can be set up to allow configuration and management within specific VSANs only. This approach improves the manageability of large SANs and reduces disruptions resulting from human errors by isolating the effect of a SAN administrator's action to a specific VSAN whose membership can be isolated based on switch ports or worldwide names (WWNs) of attached devices.

VSANs are supported across FCIP links between SANs, extending VSANs to include devices at a remote location. The Cisco MDS 9000 Family also implements trunking for VSANs. Trunking allows Inter-Switch Links (ISLs) to carry traffic for multiple VSANs on the same physical link. F-port trunking allows multiple VSANs on a single uplink in N-port virtualization (NPV) mode.

Inter-VSAN Routing

Data traffic can be transported between specific initiators and targets on different VSANs using inter-VSAN routing (IVR) without merging VSANs into a single logical fabric. Fibre Channel control traffic does not flow between VSANs, nor can initiators access any resources aside from the ones designated with IVR. Valuable resources such as tape libraries can be easily shared without compromise. IVR also can be used in conjunction with FCIP to create more efficient business continuity and disaster recovery solutions.

Cisco MDS 9000 Family network-assisted storage applications offer deployment flexibility and investment protection by allowing the deployment of appliance-based storage applications for any server or storage device in the SAN without the need to rewire SAN switches or end devices. Easy insertion and provisioning of appliance-based storage applications is achieved by removing the need to insert the appliance into the primary I/O path between servers and storage. Cisco MDS 9000 SANTap taps the primary I/O path and provides a reliable copy of the storage write operations to a partner appliance. This capability enables partner applications to help ensure data continuity, data protection, storage performance, and service-level agreement (SLA) monitoring, without the drawbacks of deployment of in-band data-path or out-of-band host-based devices. Cisco MDS 9000 SANTap provides replication support for heterogeneous storage without compromising the integrity, availability, or performance of I/O operations between the host and the primary target.

Cisco Storage Media Encryption (SME) provides a complete, integrated solution for encryption of data at rest on heterogeneous disks, tape drives, and virtual tape libraries (VTLs) in SAN environments. Storage in any VSAN can make full use of Cisco SME capabilities, providing exceptional flexibility for provisioning this transparent fabric service. Cisco SME requires no SAN reconfiguration or rewiring, thereby eliminating downtime for deployment. Cisco SME employs clustering technology to enhance reliability and availability, enables automated load-balancing and failover capabilities, and simplifies the provisioning process. The Cisco SME encryption service is managed as a single, logical function in the SAN rather than as a feature that works on individual switches or modules. Secure lifecycle key management is included along with essential capabilities such as key archival, shredding, and export and import for single- and multiple-site environments. Cisco SME provisioning and key management are both integrated into Cisco Data Center Network Manager for SAN (DCNM-SAN); no additional software is required for management.

Cisco Data Mobility Manager

Cisco Data Mobility Manger (DMM) is a SAN-based, intelligent fabric application offering data migration between heterogeneous disk arrays. Cisco DMM offers rate-adjusted online migration to enable applications to continue uninterrupted operation while data migration is in progress. Advanced capabilities such as data verification, unequal size logical unit number (LUN) migration, and multipath support provide flexibility and meet the high-availability requirements of enterprise data centers. Cisco DMM is transparent to host applications and storage devices. Cisco DMM can be introduced without the need to rewire or reconfigure the SAN. Cisco DCNM-SAN is used to administer Cisco DMM; no additional management software is required.

I/O Accelerator

The Cisco MDS 9000 I/O Accelerator (IOA) feature is a SAN-based intelligent fabric application that provides SCSI acceleration to significantly improve the number of SCSI I/O operations per second over long distances in a Fibre Channel or FCIP SAN by reducing the effect of transport latency on the processing of each operation. The feature also extends the distance for disaster recovery and business continuity applications over WANs and metropolitan area networks (MANs). IOA can be deployed in conjunction with disk data replication solutions such as EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility (SRDF), EMC MirrorView, and HDS TrueCopy to extend the distance between data centers or reduce the effects of latency. IOA can also be used to enable remote tape backup and restore operations without significant throughput degradation.

• Compression: Compression in IOA increases the effective MAN and WAN bandwidth without the need for costly infrastructure upgrades. Integration of data compression into IOA enables implementation of more efficient Fibre Channel- and FCIP-based business continuity and disaster recovery solutions without the need to add or manage a separate device.

• High availability and resiliency: IOA combines PortChannels and equal-cost multipath (ECMP) routing with disk and tape acceleration for higher availability and resiliency.

IBM Extended Remote Copy (XRC), which is now officially renamed IBM z/OS Global Mirror, is a mainframe-based software replication solution in widespread use in financial institutions worldwide. In the past, Cisco has supported XRC over FCIP at distances of up to 124 miles (200 km). The new Cisco MDS 9000 XRC Acceleration feature supports essentially unlimited distances. XRC Acceleration accelerates dynamic updates from the primary to the secondary direct-access storage device (DASD) by reading ahead of the remote replication IBM System z, known as the System Data Mover (SDM). This data is buffered within the Cisco MDS 9000 module that is local to the SDM, reducing or eliminating the latency effects that can otherwise reduce performance at distances of 124 miles (200 km) or greater. This process is sometimes referred to as XRC emulation or XRC extension.

Cisco TrustSec Fibre Channel Link Encryption addresses customer needs for data integrity and privacy. Cisco TrustSec Fibre Channel Link Encryption is an extension of the FC-SP feature and uses the existing FC-SP architecture. Starting with Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS 4.2(1), Fibre Channel data between E-ports of Cisco MDS 9000 8-Gbps Fibre Channel switching modules can be encrypted. The encryption algorithm is 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and enables either AES-Galois/Counter Mode (AES-GCM) or AES-Galois Message Authentication Code (AES-GMAC) for an interface. AES-GCM encrypts and authenticates frames, and AES-GMAC authenticates only the frames that are being passed between the two E-ports. Encryption is performed at line rate by encapsulating frames at egress with encryption using the GCM mode of AES 128-bit encryption. At ingress, frames are decrypted and authenticated with integrity check.

• There are two primary use cases for Cisco TrustSec Fibre Channel Link Encryption: Many customers will want to help ensure the privacy and integrity of any data that leaves the secure confines of their data center through a native Fibre Channel link, such as dark fiber, Coarse Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (CWDM), or Dense Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (DWDM).

• Other customers, such as those in defense and intelligence services, may be even more security focused and choose to encrypt all traffic within their data center as well, since the encryption is at full line rate with no performance penalty.

Role-Based Access Control

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS provides RBAC for management access to the Cisco MDS 9000 Family command-line interface (CLI) and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). In addition to the two default roles on the switch, up to 64 user-defined roles can be configured. Applications using SNMP Version 3 (SNMPv3), such as Cisco DCNM-SAN, offer full RBAC for switch features managed using this protocol. The roles describe the access-control policies for various feature-specific commands on one or more VSANs. CLI and SNMP users and passwords are shared, and only a single administrative account is required for each user.

Port Security and Fabric Binding

Port security locks down the mapping of an entity to a switch port. The entities can be hosts, targets, or switches, identified by their WWNs. This locking mechanism helps ensure that unauthorized devices connecting to the switch port do not disrupt the SAN fabric. Fabric binding extends port security to allow ISLs between only specified switches.

Zoning

Zoning provides access control for devices within a SAN. In addition, the software provides support for smart zoning, which dramatically reduces operational complexity while consuming fewer resources on the switch. Smart zoning enables customers to create zones at an application level, a physical cluster level, or a virtualized cluster level in one zone instead of in multiple zones without sacrificing switch resources.

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS supports the following types of zoning:

• N-port zoning: Defines zone members based on the end-device (host and storage) port

– WWN

– Fibre Channel identifier (FC-ID)

• Fx-port zoning: Defines zone members based on the switch port

– WWN

– WWN plus interface index, or domain ID plus interface index

– Domain ID plus port number (for Brocade interoperability)

• iSCSI zoning: Defines zone members based on the host zone

– iSCSI name

– IP address

To provide strict network security, zoning is always enforced per frame using access control lists (ACLs) that are applied at the ingress switch. All zoning polices are enforced in hardware, and none of them cause performance degradation. Enhanced zoning session-management capabilities further enhance security by allowing only one user at a time to modify zones.

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS provides nondisruptive software upgrades for director-class products with redundant hardware and fabric switches. Minimally disruptive upgrades are provided for the other Cisco MDS 9000 Family fabric switches that do not have redundant supervisor engine hardware.

Stateful Process Failover

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS automatically restarts failed software processes and provides stateful supervisor engine failover to help ensure that any hardware or software failures on the control plane do not disrupt traffic flow in the fabric.

ISL Resiliency Using PortChannels

PortChannels aggregate multiple physical ISLs into one logical link with higher bandwidth and port resiliency for both Fibre Channel and FICON traffic. With this feature, up to 16 expansion ports (E-ports) or trunking E-ports (TE-ports) or F-ports connected to NP-ports can be bundled into a PortChannel. ISL ports can reside on any switching module, and they do not need a designated master port. Thus, if a port or a switching module fails, the PortChannel continues to function properly without requiring fabric reconfiguration.

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS uses a protocol to exchange PortChannel configuration information between adjacent switches to simplify PortChannel management, including misconfiguration detection and autocreation of PortChannels among compatible ISLs. In the autoconfigure mode, ISLs with compatible parameters automatically form channel groups; no manual intervention is required.

Similarly, VRRP increases IP network availability for iSCSI and FCIP connections by allowing failover of connections from one port to another. This feature facilitates the failover of an iSCSI volume from one IP services port to any other IP services port, either locally or on another Cisco MDS 9000 Family switch.

SAN extension resiliency is enhanced by the Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS port-tracking feature. If a Cisco MDS 9000 Family switch detects a WAN or MAN link failure, it takes down the associated disk-array link when port tracking is configured, so the array can redirect a failed I/O operation to another link without waiting for an I/O timeout. Otherwise, disk arrays must wait seconds for an I/O timeout to recover from a network link failure.

Cisco DCNM simplifies management of virtual infrastructure by managing the entire path: the physical to the virtual network across the whole data center environment. The virtual machine-aware views increase service availability by identifying bottlenecks in virtual machine and VMware ESX performance and extending the visibility to the physical fabric. The virtual machine-aware topology view shows all the dependencies from the virtual machine to the physical host, to the switch, and to storage with quick access to a detailed view of their attributes. The virtual machine - aware dashboard displays all the information needed to manage the virtual environment, including performance charts, inventory information, events, and virtual machine and VMware ESX use information. This powerful approach greatly reduces switch setup times, increases overall fabric reliability, and provides extensive diagnostics for resolving configuration inconsistencies.

Cisco IOS Software CLI Similarity

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS presents the user with a consistent, logical CLI. Adhering to the syntax of the widely known Cisco IOS
® Software CLI, the Cisco MDS NX-OS CLI is easy to learn and delivers broad management capabilities. The Cisco MDS 9000 Family CLI is an extremely efficient and direct interface designed to provide optimal capability to administrators in enterprise environments. Administrators can write CLI scripts to manage the Cisco MDS 9000 Family using standard scripting languages.

Open APIs

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS provides a truly open API for the Cisco MDS 9000 Family based on the industry-standard SNMP. Commands performed on the switches by Cisco DCNM-SAN use this open API extensively. Also, all major storage and network management software vendors use the Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS management API.

The CiscoWorks solution is a commonly used suite of tools for a wide range of Cisco devices such as IP switches, routers, and wireless devices. The Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS open API allows the CiscoWorks Resource Manager Essentials (RME) application to provide centralized Cisco MDS 9000 Family configuration management, software-image management, intelligent system log (syslog) management, and inventory management. The open API also helps CiscoWorks Device Fault Manager (DFM) monitor Cisco MDS device health, such as supervisor memory and processor utilization. CiscoWorks DFM can also monitor the health of important components such as fans, power supplies, and temperature.

N-Port Virtualization

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS supports industry-standard N-port identifier virtualization (NPIV), which allows multiple N-port fabric logins concurrently on a single physical Fibre Channel link. HBAs that support NPIV can help improve SAN security by enabling configuration of zoning and port security independently for each virtual machine (OS partition) on a host. In addition to being useful for server connections, NPIV is beneficial for connectivity between core and edge SAN switches.

NPV is a complementary feature that reduces the number of Fibre Channel domain IDs in core-edge SANs. Cisco MDS 9000 Family fabric switches operating in the NPV mode do not join a fabric; they just pass traffic between core switch links and end devices, which eliminates the domain IDs for these switches. NPIV is used by edge switches in the NPV mode to log in to multiple end devices that share a link to the core switch. This feature is available only for Cisco MDS 9000 Family blade switches and the Cisco MDS 9100 Series Multilayer Fabric Switches.

Autolearn for Network Security Configuration

The autolearn feature allows the Cisco MDS 9000 Family to automatically learn about devices and switches that connect to it. The administrator can use this feature to configure and activate network security features such as port security without having to manually configure the security for each port.

FlexAttach

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS supports the FlexAttach feature. One of the main problems faced today in SAN environment is the time and effort required to install and replace servers. The process involves both SAN and server administrators, and the interaction and coordination between them can make the process time consuming. To alleviate the need for interaction between SAN and server administrators, the SAN configuration should not be changed when a new server is installed or an existing server is replaced. FlexAttach addresses these problems, reducing configuration changes and the time and coordination required by SAN and server administrators when installing and replacing servers. This feature is available only for Cisco MDS 9000 Family blade switches and the Cisco MDS 9124 and 9134 Multilayer Fabric Switch when the NPV mode is enabled.

Host Provisioning Wizard

The Cisco DCNM Host Provisioning Wizard enables customers to move existing host and storage nodes using a single management tool. The wizard provides the requisite utilities for transparent migration operations.

The wizard allows the administrator to quickly commission or decommission hosts and:

• Create a device alias for the host

• Create a dynamic port VSAN membership (DPVM) entry for the host

• Add the host and storage to a zone and activate the zone

• Create a flow between the host and storage for performance monitoring

Cisco Data Center Network Manager Server Federation

Cisco DCNM server federation improves management availability and scalability by load balancing fabric-discovery, performance-monitoring, and event-handling processes. Cisco DCNM provides a single management pane for viewing and managing all fabrics within a single federation. A storage administrator can discover and move fabrics within a federation for the purposes of load balancing, high availability, and disaster recovery. In addition, users can connect to any Cisco DCNM instance and view all reports, inventory, statistics, and logs from a single web browser. Up to 10 Cisco DCNM instances can form a federation (or cluster) that can manage more than 75,000 end devices.

The Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS) helps existing TCP/IP networks function more effectively as SANs by automating discovery, management, and configuration of iSCSI devices. iSCSI targets presented by Cisco MDS 9000 Family IP storage services and Fibre Channel device-state-change notifications are registered by Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS, either through the highly available, distributed iSNS built into Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS or through external iSNS servers.

Proxy iSCSI Initiator

The proxy iSCSI initiator simplifies configuration procedures when multiple iSCSI initiators (hosts) are assigned to the same iSCSI target ports. Proxy mode reduces the number of separate times that back-end tasks such as Fibre Channel zoning and storage-device configuration must be performed.

iSCSI Server Load Balancing

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS helps simplify large-scale deployment and management of iSCSI servers. In addition to allowing fabricwide iSCSI configuration from a single switch, iSCSI server load balancing (iSLB) is available to automatically redirect servers to the next available Gigabit Ethernet port. iSLB greatly simplifies iSCSI configuration and provides automatic, rapid recovery from IP connectivity problems for high availability.

IPv6

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS provides IPv6 support for FCIP, iSCSI, and management traffic routed in band and out of band. A complete dual stack has been implemented for IPv4 and IPv6 to remain compatible with the large base of IPv4-compatible hosts, routers, and Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches running previous software revisions. This dual-stack approach allows the Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches to easily connect to older IP networks, transitional networks with a mixture of both versions, and pure IPv6 data networks.

Traffic Management

In addition to implementing the Fabric Shortest Path First (FSPF) Protocol to calculate the best path between two switches and providing in-order delivery features, Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS enhances the architecture of the Cisco MDS 9000 Family with several advanced traffic-management features that help ensure consistent performance of the SAN under varying load conditions.

Quality of Service

Four distinct quality-of-service (QoS) priority levels are available: three for Fibre Channel data traffic and one for Fibre Channel control traffic. Fibre Channel data traffic for latency-sensitive applications can be configured to receive higher priority than throughput-intensive applications using data QoS priority levels. Control traffic is assigned the highest QoS priority automatically, to accelerate convergence of fabricwide protocols such as FSPF, zone merges, and principal switch selection.

Data traffic can be classified for QoS by the VSAN identifier, zone, N-port WWN, or FC-ID. Zone-based QoS helps simplify configuration and administration by using the familiar zoning concept.

Extended Credits

Full line-rate Fibre Channel ports provide at least 255 buffer credits as standard. Adding credits lengthens distances for Fibre Channel SAN extension. Using extended credits, up to 4095 buffer credits from a pool of more than 6000 buffer credits for a module can be allocated to ports as needed to greatly extend the distance for Fibre Channel SANs.

Virtual Output Queuing

Virtual output queuing (VOQ) buffers Fibre Channel traffic at the ingress port to eliminate head-of-line blocking. The switch is designed so that the presence of a slow N-port on the SAN does not affect the performance of any other port on the SAN.

Fibre Channel Port Rate Limiting

The Fibre Channel port rate-limiting feature for the Cisco MDS 9100 Series Multilayer Fabric Switches controls the amount of bandwidth available to individual Fibre Channel ports within groups of four host-optimized ports. Limiting bandwidth on one or more Fibre Channel ports allows the other ports in the group to receive a greater share of the available bandwidth under high-use conditions. Port rate limiting is also beneficial for throttling WAN traffic at the source to help eliminate excessive buffering in Fibre Channel and IP data network devices.

Load Balancing of PortChannel Traffic

PortChannels load balance Fibre Channel traffic using a hash of the source FC-ID and destination FC-ID, and optionally the exchange ID. Load balancing using PortChannels is performed over both Fibre Channel and FCIP links. Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS also can be configured to load balance across multiple same-cost FSPF routes.

iSCSI and SAN Extension Performance Enhancements

iSCSI and FCIP enhancements address out-of-order delivery problems, optimize transfer sizes for the IP network topology, and reduce latency by eliminating TCP connection setup for most data transfers. FCIP performance is further enhanced for SAN extension by compression and write acceleration.

For WAN performance optimization, Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS includes a SAN extension tuner, which directs SCSI I/O commands to a specific virtual target and reports I/O operations per second and I/O latency results, helping determine the number of concurrent I/O operations needed to increase FCIP throughput.

FCIP Compression

FCIP compression in Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS increases the effective WAN bandwidth without costly infrastructure upgrades. By integrating data compression in the Cisco MDS 9000 Family, more efficient FCIP-based business continuity and disaster recovery solutions can be implemented without the need to add and manage a separate device. Gigabit Ethernet ports for the Cisco MDS 9222i Multiservice Modular Switch, MDS 9000 18/4-Port Multiservice Module, and MDS 9000 16-Port Storage Services Node achieve up to a 43:1 compression ratio, with typical ratios of 4:1 over a wide variety of data sources.

Without FCIP tape acceleration, the effective WAN throughput for remote tape operations decreases exponentially as the WAN latency increases. FCIP tape acceleration helps achieve nearly full throughput over WAN links for remote tape-backup operations for both open systems and mainframe environments, and restore operations for open systems.

Serviceability, Troubleshooting, and Diagnostics

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS is among the first storage network OSs to provide a broad set of serviceability features that simplify the process of building, expanding, and maintaining SANs. These features also increase availability by decreasing SAN disruptions for maintenance and reducing recovery time from problems. Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS can shut down malfunctioning ports if errors exceed user-defined thresholds, which helps isolate problems and reduces risk by preventing errors from spreading to the whole fabric.

Switched Port Analyzer and Cisco Fabric Analyzer

Typically, debugging errors in a Fibre Channel SAN require the use of a Fibre Channel analyzer, which causes significant disruption of traffic in the SAN. The Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) feature allows an administrator to analyze all traffic between ports (called the SPAN source ports) by nonintrusively directing the SPAN-session traffic to a SPAN destination port that has an external analyzer attached to it. The SPAN destination port does not have to be on the same switch as the SPAN source ports; any Fibre Channel port in the fabric can be a source. SPAN sources can include Fibre Channel ports and FCIP and iSCSI virtual ports for IP services.

The embedded Cisco Fabric Analyzer allows the Cisco MDS 9000 Family to save Fibre Channel control traffic within the switch for text-based analysis, or to send IP-encapsulated Fibre Channel control traffic to a remote PC for decoding and display using the open-source Ethereal network-analyzer application. Fibre Channel control traffic therefore can be captured and analyzed without an expensive Fibre Channel analyzer.

SCSI Flow Statistics

LUN-level SCSI flow statistics can be collected for any combination of initiator and target. The scope of these statistics includes read, write, and control commands and error statistics. This feature is available only on the Cisco MDS 9000 Family storage service modules.

Fibre Channel Ping and Fibre Channel Traceroute Features

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS brings to storage networks features such as Fibre Channel ping and Fibre Channel traceroute, which are essential for IP network troubleshooting. With Fibre Channel ping, administrators can check the connectivity of an N-port and determine its round-trip latency, and with Fibre Channel traceroute, administrators can check the reachability of a switch by tracing the path followed by frames and determining hop-by-hop latency.

Call Home

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS offers a Call Home feature for proactive fault management. Call Home provides a notification system triggered by software and hardware events. The Call Home feature forwards the alarms and events, packaged with other relevant information in a standard format, to external entities. Alert grouping capabilities and customizable destination profiles offer the flexibility needed to notify specific individuals or support organizations only when necessary. These notification messages can be used to automatically open technical-assistance tickets and resolve problems before they become critical. External entities can include, but are not restricted to, an administrator's email account or pager, a server in-house or at a service provider's facility, and the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC).

System Log

The Cisco MDS 9000 Family syslog capabilities greatly enhance debugging and management. Syslog severity levels can be set individually for all Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS functions, facilitating logging and display of messages ranging from brief summaries to very detailed information for debugging. Messages can be selectively routed to a console and to log files. Messages are logged internally, and they can be sent to external syslog servers.

Other Serviceability Features

Additional serviceability features include the following:

• Online diagnostics: Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS provides advanced online diagnostics capabilities. Periodically tests are run to verify that supervisor engines, switching modules, optics, and interconnections are functioning properly. These online diagnostics do not adversely affect normal Fibre Channel operations, allowing them to be run in production SAN environments.

• Loopback testing: The Cisco MDS 9000 Family uses offline port loopback testing to check port capabilities. During testing, a port is isolated from the external connection, and traffic is looped internally from the transmit path back to the receive path.

• IPFC: The Cisco MDS 9000 Family provides the capability to carry IP packets over a Fibre Channel network. With this feature, an external management station attached through an OOB management port to a Cisco MDS 9000 Family switch in the fabric can manage all other switches in the fabric using the in-band IPFC Protocol.

• Network Time Protocol (NTP) support: NTP synchronizes system clocks in the fabric, providing a precise time base for all switches. An NTP server must be accessible from the fabric through the OOB Ethernet port. Within the fabric, NTP messages are transported using IPFC.

• Enhanced event logging and reporting with SNMP traps and syslog: Cisco MDS 9000 Family events filtering and remote monitoring (RMON) provide complete and exceptionally flexible control over SNMP traps. Traps can be generated based on a threshold value, switch counters, or time stamps.

Syslog provides a comprehensive supplemental source of information for managing Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches. Messages ranging from only high-severity events to detailed debugging messages can be logged, if desired.

Licensed Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS Software Packages

Most Cisco MDS 9000 Family software features are included in the standard package: the base configuration of the switch. However, some features are logically grouped into add-on packages that must be licensed separately, such as the Cisco MDS 9000 Enterprise Package, SAN Extension over IP Package, Mainframe Package, DCNM Packages, Storage Services Enabler (SSE) Package, SME Package, DMM Package, IOA Package, and XRC Acceleration Package. On-demand port activation licenses are also available for the Cisco MDS 9000 Family blade switches and 4-Gbps Cisco MDS 9100 Series Multilayer Fabric Switches.

Enterprise Package

The standard software package that is bundled at no charge with the Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches includes the base set of features that Cisco believes are required by most customers for building a SAN. The Cisco MDS 9000 Family also has a set of advanced features that are recommended for all enterprise SANs. These features are bundled together in the Cisco MDS 9000 Enterprise Package. Refer to the Cisco MDS 9000 Enterprise Package data sheet for more information, at
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/ps4159/ps6409/ps6029/product_data_sheet09186a00801ca6ac.html.

On-demand ports allow customers to benefit from Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS features while initially purchasing only a small number of activated ports on 4-Gbps Cisco MDS 9100 Series switches. Customers can expand switch connectivity as needed by licensing additional ports.

Storage Media Encryption Package

The Cisco MDS 9000 SME Package enables encryption of data at rest on heterogeneous disks, tape devices, and VTLs as a transparent fabric service. Cisco SME is completely integrated with Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches and the Cisco DCNM application, enabling deployment of highly available encryption services without the need to rewire or reconfigure SANs, and allowing easy management of these services without the need to install additional management software. Refer to the Cisco MDS 9000 SME Package data sheet for more information, at
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/ps4159/ps6409/ps6028/ps8502/product_data_sheet0900aecd80692db2.pdf.

The Cisco MDS 9000 IOA Package provides SCSI acceleration to significantly improve the number of SCSI I/O operations per second over long distances in a Fibre Channel or FCIP SAN by reducing the effect of transport latency on the processing of each operation. It also extends the distance for disaster recovery and business continuity applications over WANs and MANs. Refer to the Cisco MDS 9000 IOA Package data sheet for more information, at
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/ps4159/ps6409/ps6028/ps10531/data_sheet_c78-538860.html.

XRC Acceleration Package

The Cisco MDS 9000 XRC Acceleration Package accelerates dynamic updates from the primary to the secondary DASD by reading ahead of the remote replication IBM System z, known as the SDM. This data is buffered within the Cisco MDS 9000 module that is local to the SDM, reducing or eliminating the latency effects, which can otherwise reduce performance at distances of 124 miles (200 km) or greater. This process is sometimes referred to as XRC emulation or XRC extension. Refer to the Cisco MDS 9000 XRC Acceleration Package data sheet for more information, at
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/ps4159/ps6409/ps6028/ps10526/data_sheet_c78-538834.html.